Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Stones of Summer: Instinct ❯ Mid-Summer/18 ( Chapter 5 )

I ventured the darkness in hopes of finding someone, anyone. A heedless desperation overwhelmed me. I had to find these people! I don't know what I would do when I found them, or how I would convince them to spare my life let alone help me save Way, but I couldn't fail, this would be the end if I failed. My knees were about ready to bail on me, and my thighs and calves burned with a vengeance. My breath had become uneven during the night and I only now thought of the fact that despite everything that had happened, not once had I used my inhaler. My hand dropped to my pocket where I kept it and was vaguely thrown back to the plane crash, when I had last used it. The red plastic seemed almost painful. There was nothing in the natural world that had that bright and deep of a red besides birds or frogs, and neither of them had the plastic sheen. "Ouch!" A sting at my throat had my hand jumping to the spot. Upon examining my fingers, I realized I had been cut, a small slit on the side of of my throat. I stared at it confusedly, not quite sure what had just happened. I looked about, still holding my hand up when pain blossomed in the same palm. I stared down in astonishment and excruciating agony. An arrow head was protruding from my hand, its pointed head so sharp that it did not even show signs of having gone through my head. The realization set up as my mind came back from the shock. I dropped to my knees, clutching my hand and screaming. My hand twinged painfully and I cried. Three men surrounded me and a sharp, jabbing pain erupted in my neck and my vision began to blur. "What...what...wha..." My tongue felt too large and my head too heavy. Something slammed against the back of my head and I crumpled to the ground. My mind struggled to stay afloat in the madness of pain and drug induced sleep. I lost.Lights buzzed through my eyelids and I groaned. My head throbbed terribly and I was sure I had died. But my eyes opened. The dirt was stuck to my eyelashes and stirred with every heaving breath I took. The air was rancid and coated with urine. Cautiously, I pushed myself to sit up, and startled when I realized there were other people in the room. A woman with dark eyes and a child pressed to her side were huddled in the corner. She couldn't have been over the age of thirty, but she looked thin and small. Her ankle had a chain clamped onto it, keeping her in place. The same chain was wrapped bodily around the child. I looked away, looking closer at my surroundings. There was a man crumpled in the corner, blood covering his face. I was forced to press my hands against my mouth to keep the bile in as I saw that his hands had been removed, brutally, and his form was trembling as the blood slowly leaked from the severed appendages. I instantly looked away, not able to keep the picture from my mind. There was on last man in the room with us, but he had a blanket or sac of some sort covering his head and face. It moved, very tiny movements, like the twitch of a cheek, or a light exhale. One of his legs was badly injured and my heart surged into my throat. "Way?" I whispered, holding my hands pressed harshly to the ground. He didn't move. I inched forward. The woman eyed my warily. I reached out, falling short just centimeters of the cover. A chain wrapped around my middle kept me from moving very far. I pushed it as hard as I could, pressing it into my hips and pelvis. I leaned forward, nearly lying out on the ground. My fingertips grasped the cloth, just barely, pinching it with my nails. I pulled it away. It didn't come easily. I was waiting for him to move, to grab me or stop me, but nothing happened. Once the cloth was pulled from his face I screamed and launched back, landing in a damp spot. I brought my hand to my face to see it bright red, I scurried back to where I had been laying. I covered my face with my arms and pressed my eyes to my knees. I dare not look at the man whose face was being eaten by bugs and larva. My stomach twisted violently with the after picture left in my head. Whimpering, I forced happier memories to the forefront of my mind, desperately trying not to think of the bleeding and dead man. At least, I hoped he was dead.The whole shelter shook when the door opened. The man who came waved a machete at me and when I held my hands up, close to my head, in surrender, he viciously yanked the chain off and dragged me away.It was night when I was thrown back into the rotting hole that was these people's jail. The two, now dead, men were still there as well as the woman and child. I was tossed to the floor on top of the one who had bled to death, shaking and crying. I hurt, entirely too much to be able to survive this surely. I crawled away from him and huddled against my wall, burying my face as I curled into a ball. I could still smell the blood that covered my thighs and I choked on the vomit that forced its way up. When a woman came in this time, I cowered away, still able to see the a guard behind her. She dropped two shabby cracked bowls near the mother and I before leaving with a look of pity. The food looked horrendous and I was unmoved to eat. I picked at my food a bit, watching the floor and walls. The heat made this place seem that much more sickening. My stomach clenched painfully, and my muscles burned. I spit on my hand and rubbed it across my legs, trying to wipe away some of the blood. I cried the entire time. After a few moments, I held my bowl out to the woman. She pulled hers back suspiciously, sheltering the child more.
"Wèile yîng'ér." I offered my bowl again,pushing it further. She stared at me confusedly but finally took it. The child needed more to eat than I did anyway.
"Xièxie." She murmured, her voice raspy and painful to listen to. I nodded and lay down, breathing into the dirt.
I hurt so very bad.
I squeezed my knees together tighter and scrunched my eyes closed. I wanted my parents, I wanted to be home, I wanted to have never gotten on that plane. I wish I had listened to my instinct. I wish I had stayed home that night, and slept until the morning. Knowing my luck, my parents were frightened out of belief for me, and I was just causing them grief.
"Way." I wanted Way here, I wanted Way to have never gotten hurt in the first place.
Fate has been cruel.
Our day was interrupted when men came in and dragged us all out. The child screamed and mother wailed. I dug my nails into the dirt, trying to crawl away. My legs refused to work with me. I was dragged out by my hair.
We were dropped in front of a gathering of people who were loud and yelling. A man with glass beads and a feather in his hair was chanting over us. He wheezed with every word, gasp for air. He was saying that we were traitors, that we were criminals. That two of us had been lost in the attempts to purify us, and now he would see if the two of us were ready to rejoin society. But I wasn't a part of their society; there would be no second chance for me. They kept our heads bent and tied off our hands. I watched him twirl around a slate blade set in a wooden handle. My blade. I tried to feel if my blade was still pressed to my stomach, but I felt nothing. They had stripped me of it.
He stood over the mother and child, asking them if they were ready to face the consequences of their crimes and to rejoin their friends and family. The woman glared and spit at him, sneering angrily. He frowned and made an abortive movement with his hand. Death. I lurched up, my heart squeezing into my further into my throat where it never had really left.
"Dìngdài! Màoyì!" It was a gamble,, but maybe they would take it. I pulled at my hands and the man, the chief I assume, raised an eyebrow. He pointed to my hands, and they bounds were cut, but a man grabbed me by the hair and pulled. Wincing, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my inhaler. Why they hadn't taken it before, I couldn't be sure of, but I may just save me. I offered it out, cup both scratched, bloodied, dirt coated hand around it. He looked at it suspiciously and then back at me, his gaze boring into me. He asked me what it was. I told him medicine, to help him breathe better. Murmurs broke out over the small crowd and I became nervous.
"Guânkàn." I pressed the red plastic to my lips and inhaled quickly as I pushed the metal cylinder down. My lungs instantly filled with the medication and after having a slight feeling of dizziness, I looked to the chief. I felt high on the amount of oxygen I was able to get now. He reached for it, but I pulled back. He shouted at me and the man with a hold on my hair yanked me back mercilessly. I told him that he would have to free us first, the mother, the child and myself. We stared off, and I lowered my gaze so as not to seem so defiant. I heard a cry of disbelief and looked up quickly to see the woman rise to her feet, hoisting her child onto her hip. My head was just as suddenly released as my hair fell around my chin. I brushed my hand through it a came up short. My hair had been cut off at my loose ponytail.
I was yanked to my feet and I handed off the inhaler with hasty means. I then took the arm of the woman and without a second glance back, I forced her into a run. They had given us a chance, I wasn't going to waste it. Once we were out of sight and shot of the village, the woman took her arm back and slowed our pace. After a few hours of walking, she moved the child on to her back and wrapped the large colored cloth around him. He never made a sound the entire time. She must have known where we were for she moved about the land swiftly. She found us water and berries, and before the last rays had passed the day, there was a village just within our sight. I faltered in my steps, and the woman moved on without a backwards glance.
My gut told me to stay put, to wait. I did. Besides it was getting dark. I huddled down against a large boulder and wrapped my arms around my knees, resting my chins on them.
Full darkness fell, only lit by the pale moon. The sound of kicked up rocks alerted me to someone's return. I peeked my head over the rock to stare at the woman, her child gone. She didn't make eye contact with me, handing me a bundle of white cloth and a shovel.
"Shènme..." She turned her gaze on me. She turned me around, pulling the leather thong from her hair and threading her fingers through my own hair. It was pulled tighter and I felt her working behind me. When she was done, she turned me about once more, and I felt at my head, feeling my hair pulled taunt in a incredibly short pony tail. She took my face in her hands and stared me deep in the eye.
"Child, who is important to you? What is your fate?" I nearly couldn't understand her, her accent was so heavy.
I didn't wait to answer who.
I knew who was important to me.
I knew what my fate was.
Save Way. Survive.
I walked with the shovel as my aid. My ankle hurt terribly, but there was nothing I could do about it. The sun was going to rise in a few hours and I had made little progress getting back to him.
I would have to do it on my own. What use the shovel would be for me, I had no clue. Still, I followed my towers to where I had last seen Way, excited to see him in what seemed like days.
When night pressed on, I was forced to make camp in fear of the animals. I wasn't in the forest, still I feared any tigers that were around. I started up a small brush fire and laid myself next to it. I didn't have anything to kill any rodents with, so I couldn't hunt and I didn't want to rummage around in the plants for food, so I would have to go hungry for the night.
'I'll dig up some roots tomorrow to eat while I move.' It didn't sound as appetizing as I would have to pretend it was.
I tried desperately not to think of what they had done to me. I felt used and dirty, but that couldn't stop me. And Way couldn't know. I smiled in vain.
"Who am I kidding? He'll find out somehow..." I forced myself o calm down and breathe deeply.
Sleep came quickly, what with me urging for morning light.
When I woke, it was just before dawn and the fog on the plains was high up. The fire was burnt low and I stretched to wake myself more fully. Carefully standing, I fondled my ankle lightly, determining that it was probably twisted. Way would be upset that I hadn't been careful, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and this was one of those times.
I yanked plants out at their base and charred them over the embers. I ate them as I started off. Today was going to be a long day. I brushed stray hairs from my sweat beaded face and rubbed at my tender thighs, gritting my teeth against the pain and ruddy brown they were colored. I shrugged and gave up.
Besides, who was I trying to impress?
The day moved slowly, as did the sun. I found myself excited as I neared the towers that were closest to where I had left him.
I started running, ignoring the stinging pain in my ankle. I wanted to see him!
I pressed on, urging more from my body than it had. I was exhausted and hungry. I wasn't prepared, mentally or physically, for anything devastatingly drastic.
"Way!" I called out to him, waving. He was lying out, stretched and unmoving. His arm was tossed over his face, most likely in an effort to stave off the heat. He was probably dehydrated as well. I would have to go down to the creek to get water.
"Waylen! I'm back! See, I didn't get myself killed!" I neared him and was assaulted by an awful stench. His leg must have been rotting!
'Dear gods, don't let it be so. He won't survive if it is. Gangrene would set in and there would be nothing we could do to stop it!' I pushed myself harder. My lungs burned for air and the shovel kept hitting my calf, but I didn't stop.
But then I did. So suddenly I nearly toppled over. I was in shock, I had to be. Nothing quite made sense in my head at that moment.
It wasn't his leg.
It was him.
He was dead.
I had crumpled to the ground, no tears, no sobs.
I just stared.
For hours.
I didn't understand.
What had I done wrong? What did he do wrong? Why were the gods against me? I had run as fast I could have, yet I mostly walked back. Maybe I had done something wrong.
I moved no closer to him, yet didn't move any farther away either. I chased off the rodents that came for him and tried to scoop the bugs away from a distance.
The shovel was my greatest asset at this point.
At some point, I had gotten up, moved a measured distance from his body, and began to dig.
I was horrible at it.
My hands blistered up in minutes, which broke open and bled. My shoulders and back ached instantly and my arms felt too weak.
I pushed through it. The entire night, I shoveled, digging out a hole. When the sun rose, I found myself stuck in said hole, unable to get out. I had dug my own grave.
'No you haven't, not yet.' I sighed and wiped the sweat from my forehead.
'Great, now I'm answering myself.'
An eerie calmness over took me as I prepared to move his rotting body.
When I worked up the nerve to do it, I found the same trap that had caused his death was chaining him to the ground he died on. I must have looked possessed. I sat with half his body laying on me, unsure of how to proceed.
The smell was overwhelming and I fought not to vomit. This close to his body, I could see everything.
Perhaps the trap was not what had killed him. There were huge chunks of him missing, and an arm as well.
I had left him as a sitting duck, a wounded sitting duck, for predators.
Something had gotten to him before I had.
Now the tears came, in torrent floods, drowning me as I hugged him to my body. I didn't want to let him go. I couldn't let him go. Who else would I have then?
'We'll have us.' I cried without noise, without sound.
And then, in desperation, I wailed at his captured leg with the shovel, hacking it to pieces to free him. I cried the entire time. When the horrid deed was done, I tossed the destroyed leg in first and pushed his body into the hole. I kissed him one last time before doing so and begged him to forgive me. I shoveled dirt on as quickly as I could. Night was falling and if a tiger had eaten him, it would be back. I wasn't even done shoveling when full night fell and I ran a few thousand yards away, setting a fire quickly and huddling up as close as I could, risking the scorching I was going to get.
I dreamed of men with dark skin and fierce black eyes towering over me. No matter how much I screamed and cried, they would repeatedly decimate my pride and being. I begged for Way to help me only to be cruelly reminded of the man with the rotting face filled with bugs. I woke with still too much time left to the darkness. I sat vigil the rest of the night, with my bed bowed in angry pray. I had been forgotten, betrayed, and left for dead. I felt abandoned.
I wanted Way so much more than I could ever remember wanting home. I thought my heart would stop beating; it refused to cooperate with the rest of my body.
I wanted Way to feel anger for me, to find those men and kill them, in my mind, I knew that was impossible, but it was still a dream I could enjoy.
Once dawn rose, I slowly trotted to his unfinished grave and continued with my shoveling. My arms ached terribly, shaking every time I lifted the shovel. Once the rest of the dirt was dumped over him and smacked down, I fetched the bloody trap. I wailed at the chain with the shovel, attempting to break it, but found it futile. Instead, I dug another shallower hole and buried the trap, with only the chain crawling out the dirt. I scooped up his jacket, which he had most likely had off in the heat, and pressed it to my face, sobbing endlessly.
I stay there for two day, I think. I remember the moon showing its pocked face, and I remember thinking hat I would die if I stayed out here much longer, but that didn't give me any initiative to move. I tugged his jacket on despite the heat.
Eventually, I feared a tiger returning. I retreated to a well worn path and began to walk, and at times run, and then walk, and then run again.